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How frequently do discussions about the energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining and its environmental implications arise in online and offline forums? What is the rationale behind engaging in these debates? Remarkably, these questions lack straightforward answers. The perspective that cryptocurrency is an environmental problem is widely believed to be prevalent and increasing. The chief executive officer of Tesla, Elon Musk, has garnered attention in the media for announcing that the company will cease accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment due to its adverse environmental impact (Sriram, 2023). Legislative discussions have failed to adequately address the implications of cryptocurrency expansion and the corresponding increase in energy demand for its networks. Likewise, despite global efforts to promote environmental sustainability, the cryptocurrency industry remains unregulated. The recent decision to recognize Bitcoin as an official medium of exchange in El Salvador (Alazzam et al., 2023b; Arslanian et al., 2021) is a significant turning point in the broader acceptance of cryptocurrencies. The United Nations Economic and Social Council, as well as academics worldwide, must prioritize the assessment of the environmental implications connected with this developing category of currency and assets. Please refer to figure 1 to figure 3 related cryptocurrency ownership.
Figure 1. Map depicting ownership percentage of cryptocurrencies (Source: Present research)
Figure 2. Map depicting the top-20 countries for cryptocurrency ownership (Source: Present research)
Figure 3. Ownership percentage of cryptocurrency with respect to population (Source: Present research)
The scholarly debate surrounding cryptocurrencies has lasted a long time, owing to the awareness of their potential long-term benefits in fields of economics, the environment, and society (Li et al., 2022a; Vranken, 2017). Recent studies (Alshebami, 2021; Karim et al., 2022; Kołodziejczyk, 2023) indicate an increasing trend in the volatility transmission of cryptocurrency-based financial assets to green financial assets. Studies have shown a correlation between the Economic Policy Uncertainty index and the Volatility Index, which is an example of volatility spillover (Kamal & Hassan, 2022; Karim et al., 2021). It is imperative to consider the transmission of environmental uncertainty from Bitcoin mining, as explored in previous research (Blahušiaková, 2022; Naeem et al., 2021a), and the measurement of uncertainty in the cryptocurrency domain (Yilmaz et al., 2020) regarding the impact on green financial assets. The measurement of environmental awareness in the realm of cryptocurrency can be accomplished through the utilization of the Index of Cryptocurrency Environmental Attention (Krochmal & Staniewski, 2011; Wang et al., 2022b).
The COVID-19 pandemic has been found to be associated with health concerns that are also connected to an elevated likelihood of transmitting the virus (Moslehpour et al., 2022; Özdemir, 2022; Sadiq et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2023). Consequently, the presence of COVID-19 may pose challenges to the practice of hedging within financial markets (Sarkodie et al., 2022; Ul-Durar et al., 2023). Please refer figure 4 trend in value of digital assets around the globe.